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(Sorry, I posted this in "other kinds of welfare benefit plans" as well, but I'm not sure that's the right place for it. So I'm posting it here as well.) Stumbled on this forum, what a great wealth of wisdom! I'm a union rep and we are considering starting a healthcare plan for our members. Instead of the various employers having their own healthcare plans for our members, the employers are going to give us the money and we will provide the healthcare plan for our own members. I believe we will need to start a VEBA and a MEWA, but I am uncertain as to how much we will need to allocate for start-up costs (e.g. legal advice, documents, etc.). We have 10-15k local union members. I'm assuming it will cost $500-$1mm to start up and at least 1.5 years before we can go live. Am I even in the ballpark? Anyone know how much it will cost us to get this started? Any help is much appreciated!

Stumbled on this forum, what a great wealth of wisdom! I'm a union rep and we are considering starting a healthcare plan for our members. Instead of the various employers having their own healthcare plans for our members, the employers are going to give us the money and we will provide the healthcare plan for our own members. I believe we will need to start a VEBA and a MEWA, but I am uncertain as to how much we will need to allocate for start-up costs (e.g. legal advice, documents, etc.). We have 10-15k local union members. I'm assuming it will cost $500-$1mm to start up and at least 1.5 years before we can go live. Am I even in the ballpark? Anyone know how much it will cost us to get this started? Any help is much appreciated!

How difficult is it to add another benefit to an existing VEBA. We have an existing VEBA and management asked us to evaluate adding the existing retiree life plan. The company pays most of the retiree life premiums, but retirees contribute a portion. What are the key considerations? Upfront and ongoing legal and accounting costs? Our current annual retiree life premium is relatively small (about $600,000 per year including retiree contributions) so one of my concerns is that the initial cost to move the plan into the VEBA and the ongoing legal, accounting and investment expense could be significant in comparison.

(I originally posted this topic in the VEBA message board, but was not able to get much input. I'm hoping someone will see it here, and provide advice/guidance) I have a WRAP document that lists the following plans in Exhibit A as being part of the WRAP: Group Health Plan - A Group Health Plan - B Group Health Plan - C Group Dental Plan Group Basic Life Plan Group Voluntary Life Plan Group AD&D Plan Group LTD Plan This is a large plan (10,000+ participants). The Group Health Plans are funded through a VEBA trust. This results in the plan needing to file Schedule H and have an IQPA audit the plan. The other plans (Dental, Life, etc.) do not flow through the VEBA (but they are part of the WRAP). The employee portion of the premium is withheld and remitted to the applicable insurance companies as would be done in a fully insured plan. As far back as I can see (10+ years), the Form 5500 Schedule H and the auditor's financial statements have only reported assets and activity related to the VEBA trust. My understanding is that they audit the plan as a whole, but the financials only cover the Trust. The question has come up this year as to whether or not that is the correct way to prepare the Schedule H and Financials. Should the other plans be included too? I do not believe it would affect the "balance sheet" portion of the Schedule H because the fully-insured benefits would have a net-zero affect, but it would affect the "income statement". Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

I have a WRAP document that lists the following plans in Exhibit A as being part of the WRAP: Group Health Plan - A Group Health Plan - B Group Health Plan - C Group Dental Plan Group Basic Life Plan Group Voluntary Life Plan Group AD&D Plan Group LTD Plan This is a large plan (10,000+ participants). The Group Health Plans are funded through a VEBA trust. This results in the plan needing to file Schedule H and have an IQPA audit the plan. The other plans (Dental, Life, etc.) do not flow through the VEBA (but they are part of the WRAP). The employee portion of the premium is withheld and remitted to the applicable insurance companies as would be done in a fully insured plan. As far back as I can see (10+ years), the Form 5500 Schedule H and the auditor's financial statements have only reported assets and activity related to the VEBA trust. My understanding is that they audit the plan as a whole, but the financials only cover the Trust. The question has come up this year as to whether or not that is the correct way to prepare the Schedule H and Financials. Should the other plans be included too? I do not believe it would affect the "balance sheet" portion of the Schedule H because the fully-insured benefits would have a net-zero affect, but it would potentially affect the "income statement". Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

Our corporation has a VEBA trust. There is one employee. There is a loan against the cash value of the whole life policy that is in the VEBA trust. A couple years ago, the IRS demanded that the administrator stop accepting funding because he was not keeping clean books. So, a judge turned it over to a law firm to clean things up, which they did. Now, the judge won't let us put any more assets into the VEBA, but in the mean time, there is still this loan, which is accruing interest, which we are not allowed to pay, because it would constitute adding assets to the trust. (We specifically had the VEBA administrators ask the judge about paying off the loan, and he said no.) So ... the only things in the trust are a whole life insurance policy and a loan. Thus, the VEBA is losing money every year because of the interest on the loan. Is it possible to transfer the VEBA into another VEBA so that we can continue to fund it (and pay off the loan)? We can't really cash our of the VEBA because the taxes would be insane and there is no cash in the VEBA with which to pay them. Finally, do you know of any VEBAs that are accepting transfers? Thanks! Alexis